


Is This a Date? I Think it’s a Date

by IAmWhelmed



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 19:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8115214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmWhelmed/pseuds/IAmWhelmed
Summary: Ed has always been a friendly person- touchy feely, like her, eager to make people laugh- so, Ed being himself shouldn’t bother her when they’re on a date, right? Or does he not think it’s a date?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse aside from being in a fluffy mood (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

His hand was warm and tight around her own, clutching her fingers for dear life just because they were dodging other couples in the crowded theater. Isabel wasn’t having a hard time hanging on- Ed did, after all, have a firmer grip than anyone in their designated group of friends.

She wasn’t sure if it was the sudden sprint he’d all but sprung on her, but her palms were sweaty and her heart was pounding like a heavy hammer against her chest. The pulse echoed through the veins in her hand, probably a sign that her circulation was strained.

“Ed, think you could go even faster?”

“I know you’re being sarcastic but I really could!”

His thumb ran against the back of her hand, as though he’d intended to caress the skin there. Isabel felt nauseous, and the salty sweet smell of Mayview Theater’s Specialty Popcorn wasn’t doing her gag reflex any favors. She knew she was just nervous, confused even, but knowing why her organs were doing flips was entirely different from not feeling her heart explode. She knew he just wanted to get to the movie, that he’d been excited about seeing Target Assassination for forever, but that traitorous little illogical part of her brain kept saying “he doesn’t have to be holding your hand”.

He’d been acting that way all day, and quite frankly she was up to her ears with bewildered irritation. She shouldn’t have been so befuddled; Ed always acted that way.

That was the problem.

When she’d presented him with their tickets, she’d thought her intentions painfully obvious. She’d twirled her hair in one finger, stuck her other hand in her pocket, glanced away, and turned red in the cheeks when she told him she “thought they could hang out and, ya know, do something or... something”. If her point had gotten across, and Ed knew they were there on a non-platonic, real, actual date, then she wasn’t sure if he was dropping hints or avoiding another step entirely.

So, that begged the question: If she knew it was a date, and he didn’t, was it still a date?

She didn’t know anymore. Was she supposed to tell him? Would she have to be the one to do the whole awkward “yawn and wrap an arm around the object of interest” thing? She sure hoped not. Ed had gotten taller than her in recent years, and a 5′7 girl trying to reach around the broad shoulders of a 6′4 teenage guy wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing image.

She hadn’t even realized they’d taken their seats until her back was flat against the cushy front row seat she’d splurged on because, well, that’s what she did when she had a crush, she supposed. Ed was on a long-winded rant when she tuned back in, excitably boasting about their view and the huge slushies he’d purchased them somewhere between her lapses in attentiveness. His face was bright and his eyes were wide behind his glasses, grin so huge she swore she could count his teeth if he just leaned a little closer.

His foot was brushing against hers, heel to heel with her as he continued on his frantic musings. He kept going on and on about the protagonists and about how deep their backstories and futures were tied together and how they were his reason for watching the movie at all because the book would probably be better. She watched him with a keen eye, sight darting from his hand at the armrest to his face as his expressions danced among varying degrees of excitement. His brows were furrowed, and then they weren’t- and then his smile was huge and then he was focused on his talk, lips pursed like he was puckering for a lemon. She was watching him right until the movie started, and even then she was casting glances at him from the side.

Her hand was in centimeters of his own- centimeters! Why hadn’t he reached out to hold it yet? She was not about to do all of the work; she’d asked him out- the least he could do was at least wrap their pinkies together.

Isabel huffed, stuffed her chin into her hand, and sipped from her near-empty cup louder than what was probably socially acceptable.

He wasn’t acting any different, so how was she supposed to know if he realized they were on a date- a kissy kissy, titter titter, full-on date? Maybe she should have been more forward? Maybe it might’ve been a better idea for her to come right out and tell him “hey, I like your laugh, your style, your hugs, your hobbies- you, and I want to go on a date with you”. She wasn’t even nervous anymore. Where there’d been heart-pounding intense anticipation, there was only disappointment and itchy irritation.

She might have also been a little hurt.

He wasn’t even looking at her. Her logical mind told her that made sense; they were, after all, watching a movie, but every comic and book and TV show in the world told her he should have been shooting glances at her.

By the time they’d sat through the credits, watched the final secret end-movie scene, and tossed their empty cups in the trash, she just wanted answers.

“Hey, Ed?”

He’d been scanning the rest of the strip mall, tongue hovering on his bottom lip as he thought about where to eat some lunch. He turned his head to look at her, but not his body. “’Sup?”

She hesitated, but took hold of her apprehension and shook it by its prodding neck; right then was not the time to get cold feet. She set her hands at her hips, one eyebrow raised. “You know this is supposed to be a date, right?”

He blinked. “Yeah.”

There was no hesitation there. His lips had parted before he’d even batted an eyelash.

Isabel felt cheated, like she’d raised hell for no reason because he knew it’d been a date all along- and yet he wasn’t acting like it. She should have been happy he was being himself with her. She loved him for who he was, after all. It meant that he was comfortable around her; it was just that that wasn’t a question in the first place. She knew he was comfortable around her. There was no other guy in the world that felt close enough to her that they could set one of her bras on fire (for an art project, apparently, about the death of societal expectations) and have the audacity to not fear her wrath. She wasn’t worried about him knowing her or vice versa, she was worried about whether or not he wanted to know her on a different level.

So far, all signs were pointed to “no”.

They didn’t hold hands on their way to the cheap burger place across the street. Instead, he spoke animatedly about how every scene of Target Assassination had fulfilled his dreams and desires, and she kept one hand on her side ponytail and her other, the one closest to Ed, in her pocket.

It was a first date. Maybe she shouldn’t have been expecting so much. She’d teased Isaac’s wild imagination for years, but suddenly she felt like she’d been just as bad.

The walk from the theater to the booth they’d taken was blurry, perhaps something she’d unintentionally erased entirely from her memory. She almost felt inclined to just break the date then and there, just continue hanging out as friends, but clearly that’s what their ‘date’ (if it could be called that) was going to be anyway.

“Hey, Izzy?”

She glanced up at him from her sundae, spoon flicking around in the whipped cream she was yet to devour like a vacuum. She hummed and he pointed his spoon at her, banana nut ice cream dripping from its tip. He was smiling at her, brows furrowed and head tilted to the side. She was half-expecting him to ask her if she was going to eat her bowl, and though her answer would have typically been a bite to his hand for even asking, she was feeling awfully full.

“You know, Sherry” the female lead, she recognized “really reminds me of you.”

“That so?” She was still bummed about the disaster that was her first date, but her interest had certainly been piqued.

“Yeah,” he licked the ice cream off his spoon and stuck it into one of the three scoops he had left. “She and Charles” the male lead “grew up together. Not exactly under similar circumstances, but it’s kinda like us.” He continued, and she was almost eager to see where he was going with his train of thought. “She’s so strong, and she’s smart, but at the same time she’s got this mental capacity no other character has. She faced those killer robots with only a screwdriver as a weapon, the same exact models that killed her grandparents, and she won! I think that’s what Charles really likes about her.” He stuffed a chunk of the banana atop his scoops into his mouth, wiping his yellow lips with the sleeve of his shirt. “Her strength is the reason he’s still alive, right? Even when he’s nearly dead and that monster of a lava scientist is, like, seconds away from killing him with a freaking chainsaw, he thinks about her- in the books, he thinks about her- and he just busts outta there. She’s what he’s got on the line. She’s kinda the whole reason he’s as strong as he is- to keep her with him.”

Isabel only nodded along. She remembered a few bits and pieces from the movie, moments where Charles held Sherry in his arms as they dangled from a snapping rope, miles high in the air, or where they watched the stars and mused about their unbreakable childhood-forged bond. It was all kinda cheesy, but she understood why Ed related to it. It was kind of sweet, him thinking of her like he thought of Sherry. A moment’s recollection told her Ed talked about Sherry the entire ride to the theater, so the comparison really made her feel- warm, happy... less irritated with their date?

She smiled at him, scooping up another bite of ice cream. “Does that make you Charles?” She took the bite in her mouth, letting the soft texture melt on her tongue, sweet chocolate flavor taking over her taste-buds just before she bit into the caramel bits.

“Well, yeah.” Ed swallowed his most recent bite. “I mean, you and I don’t exactly have any other love interests, Izzy.”

She nearly choked on her next bite.

She hated wasting such a great flavor, especially into a napkin when it could have been in her stomach, but it was either that or spitting rocky road all over the table. Ed nearly choked in turn, snorting and laughing into his hand with such vehemence that he was coughing as hard as she was. They sat there, both of them doubling over with the worst coughing fit known to man.

“I-I’m sorry, did you just say-?”

Ed coughed a few more times, squinted eyes looking up at her as he pressed his fist to his mouth.

Isabel folded her napkin and placed it to the side. “Did you just call me your love interest?”

“Y-Yeah,” he coughed again, voice tight and forced. “’S why I kept talking about them, Izzy.” He cleared his throat and sat a little straighter. “I like the series ‘cause Charles and Sherry get all romantical and stuff in the last book. Gave me hope ‘bout us.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” She pushed her bowl out of the way and leaned into, over, the table, fingers itching to grab Ed by the collar of his shirt. “Are you telling me that you’ve liked me, and I don’t even know how long, and you’ve never asked me out? You waited for me to do it?”

“What? Izzy, we’ve been on like five dates! I asked you to all of them!”

“What five dates?”

“Izzy, really? That one time to the fair when I got sick on that ride that went in circles, that other time to the beach- come on, really?”

“What-?” She paused and plopped back down into her seat, acutely aware that she’d been bent so far over their booth that their noses were only inches apart. “I thought this was our first date?”

“Well I guess that explains why you were sulking a few minutes ago,” Ed scratched the back of his head “you were expecting me to be a little nervous, weren’t you?”

“I don’t know! Something!” She set her head in her hands, face going hot so quickly she thought she might’ve been having a heat stroke. “I just- I just thought you’d try to wrap an arm around me or something, ya know?”

“I didn’t think you liked any of that romantic stuff?” Ed scratched his head, pouting like he’d been the one unintentionally swept up in three or four dates he hadn’t known he was going on. “Now that I know, should we kiss or-?”

“What? No!” Her entire body was fire truck red, she was sure of it. “I mean, I don’t know! I want to! But it’s our first- well, I thought it was our first...” she sighed and set her head against the table.

One of Ed’s hands wrapped around her own, fingers snaking together and squeezing her where he could. She brought her head up to look at him, and he tilted his head as innocent as a lamb. She gave him her best smile back, even if she was feeling rather... exhausted.

His thumb caressed the back of her hand, and she knew for a fact his intentions mirrored her own.


End file.
